Campaigners gathered outside Styal prison in Wilmslow, Cheshire on Sunday 10 August to remember all the women who have died there, to protest against all deaths in prison and to remember the massive contribution to the struggle against prison brutality made by Pauline Campbell, who died earlier this year. Pauline had fought for five years to highlight the abuses of vulnerable women in prison, following the death of her 18-year-old daughter Sarah in Styal in 2003. Every time a woman died in prison, she would organise a demonstration outside that prison. She travelled around the country to do this, sometimes accompanied by a group of supporters; other times standing almost alone. She was arrested 15 times and charged five times. Her contribution will never be forgotten. 10 August is Prisoners Justice Day – an annual event begun in Canada in 1975, following the death of prisoner Edward Nalon a year earlier, and first commemorated in Britain in the early 1990s.

photo John O for MOJUK

The demonstration at Styal was called by No More Prison and attended by supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Brighton Anarchist Black Cross, as well as by Guardian prisons correspondent Eric Allison and stalwart peace campaigner Joan Meredith, who participated in many of Pauline’s prison protests, and who has pledged to carry on her work.

A simultaneous demonstration took place outside Holloway prison in London, attended by supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! - London Coalition Against Poverty and Women in Prison.

Supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Rock Around the Blockade in Manchester held an event in Piccadilly Gardens in the city centre of Manchester to celebrate the life of Che Guevara. Speakers pointed out that forty one years after his death his ideas of socialism are more relevent than ever as the crisis of capitalism lurches forward and banks are collapsing in most of the major imperialist countries. We also collected signatures on petitions calling for the release of the Cuban 5 who have now spent more than 10 years incarcerated in the US prison system purly for attempting to stop terrorist attacks sponsored by the US on Cuba.

On Saturday 18 October supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supported a demonstration called by the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees in Manchester to protest over the BBC censorship of the death of Nadir Zarebee. Nadir hanged himself on 5 August 2008 in a park in Longsight, Manchester after being evicted from his home by the racist Home Office. This was the latest in a number of protests against the BBC who have refused to report on the real desperate situation of asylum seekers in Manchester and which drove Nadir to commit suicide.